Hibernation Ale Great Divide’s award-winning Hibernation Ale is Colorado’s original strong ale – it has been our winter seasonal each year since 1995. Since that time, Hibernation has become the most sought-after winter beer in Colorado. Hibernation’s massive flavors are so intense that it requires over three months of aging each year. Each summer, while our brewers are still spending their weekends in flip-flops and shorts, they prepare for July’s Hibernation brewing schedule. We cellar Hibernation until late October, when it reaches the peak of perfection. This lengthy aging process gives Hibernation its revered malty richness, complex hop profile and hearty warming character, which is perfect right out of the bottle or cellared for longer periods of time. Hibernation is a lively treat that really beats the winter chill. This scrumptious, collectible, and imminently cellarable ale is only available for six weeks each year, from November 1 to December 15.  Hibernation Ale is the perfect gift or accompaniment to your winter festivities.

Alcohol by volume: 8.1%

Accolades and other buzz on Hibernation: 

• Gold Medal, Great American Beer Festival, 1997 – Strong Ale/English-Style Old Ale
• Silver Medal, Great American Beer Festival, 2006 -- Aged Beer
• Silver Medal, Great American Beer Festival, 2003 – Old Ale
• Silver Medal, World Beer Cup, 1998 – Strong Ale/English-Style Old Ale
• Regional Champion, United States Beer Tasting Championship, Winter 2007 – Old/Strong Ale
• Regional Champion, United States Beer Tasting Championship, Winter 2005 – Old/Strong Ale
• Regional Champion, United States Beer Tasting Championship, Winter 2003 – Strong/Old Ale
• Regional Champion, United States Beer Tasting Championship, Winter 2000 –Strong/Old Ale
• Rated a “94” by Ratebeer.com – Winter 2004
• Rated a “90” by BeerAdvocate.com – Winter 2004
• Top 50 American Beers, Best of BeerAdvocate.com, 2003
• International beer expert Michael Jackson ranked Hibernation Ale “one of the nation’s best winter warmers.” 
• Malt Advocate described Hibernation Ale it its “favorite beers for cellaring” list, calling it “a beer so big you could fall in.”
• Westword Magazine’s Marty Jones calls Hiberation “the beer fiend’s equivalent of a pile of boxes under a Christmas tree.”  Marty describes it as “an English-style muscle man... a tag team of hoppy lushness and hefty amber maltiness... A symphonic blending of assertive beer bliss.” 
• TXHops, of Dallas, Texas, reviewed Hibernation on BeerAdvocate.com: “MAN!! This is one of the greatest winter beers there is... the taste is exquisite – all the flavors come together at exactly the same second in my mouth--sweet, chocolaty malt (kinda like cocoa powder), bitter, drying hops and flavor enhancing, warming, sweetening alcohol meet precisely at the same time on my tongue to create an infinitely complex beer that I just can't get enough of!” (01/21/03)

Suggested food pairings:

Our friends Kate and David at Denver’s finest artesian cheese and exotic food shop, The Truffle, pair Hibernation with two specialty cheeses:

• Roomano – a four-year aged, hard Dutch cow’s milk cheese, with a nutty, toffee-like sweetness
• Mimolette – a nutty, sweet, gouda-like French cow’s milk cheese

Availability:

Six-packs and draft, November 1 until December 15